Appointments were to be made to Waikato Regional Council committees today at its first meeting in Hamilton with the two Waipā-King Country constituency members set to pick up a heavy workload.
In the agenda, chair Pamela Storey made her recommendations but given the stalemate which occurred when she was elected to the top job, the deck may see some reshuffling.
Stu Kneebone
Sources say much of it was thrashed out behind closed doors in workshop sessions.
Experienced Cambridge councillor Stu Kneebone, who went up against Storey last month and lost when her name was pulled from the hat, is on the powerful Finance and Services committee and favoured to take the chair.
Clyde Graf is touted for the Strategy and Policy committee where despite his past experience on the regional council, he is unlikely to pick up the chair’s role.
Committees which Waipā District Council also have representatives on include the Waikato Regional Transport Committee.
Taupō-Rotorua’s Mich’eal Downard will chair it and Warren Maher from Thames-Coromandel will be deputy chair and join Waipā’s Clare St Pierre on the committee which plans and coordinates land transport, road safety and regional public transport.
Clyde Graf
A new Metro Public Transport subcommittee, which Waipā deputy mayor Liz Stolwyk is on, includes Hamilton’s Angela Strange who previously chaired the Regional Connections committee and given her hard work last term, is expected to be selected chair.
Strange also joins Storey and deputy chair Bruce Clarkson on the Local Government NZ Zone 2 committee.
The committees which Storey recommends Kneebone and Graf go on with the rest of the members are:
- Lake Taupō Protection Project Joint Committee: Downard and Kneebone, with the chair and deputy appointed by the committee.
- Ngā Wai o Waipa Co-Governance Forum: Kneebone and Storey (alternate).
- Raukawa Charitable Trust and Waikato Regional Council Co-Governance Committee: Bruce Clarkson, Kneebone, Tipa Mahuta, and Storey.
- Te Arawa River Iwi Trust and Waikato Regional Council Co-Governance Committee: Clarkson, Downard, Kneebone and Storey.
- Tῡwharetoa Māori Trust Board and Waikato Regional Council Co-Governance Committee: Clarkson, Downard, Kneebone, and Storey.
- Integrated Catchment Committee: Clarkson, Robert Cookson, Downard, Ben Dunbar-Smith, Graf, Kneebone and Noel Smith.
- Finance and Services Committee: Chris Hughes, Kneebone, Strange.
- Strategy and Policy Committee: Downard, Dunbar-Smith, Graf, Kataraina Hodge, Hughes, Maher, Mahuta, Jennifer Nickel and Smith.
- Environmental Performance Committee: Clarkson, Cookson, Dunbar-Smith, Graf and Hodge.
- Climate Action Committee: Dunbar-Smith, Graf, Nickel and Smith.
- Farm Environment Award Trust (Waikato): Kneebone and Storey.
